13 things you didn’t know about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

March 26, 2018 4:46 pm

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg

We know that recently Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized on CNN saying “ I’m really sorry that this happened” in reference to Cambridge Analytica, a data firm with ties to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, accessing information from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge.

According to CNN, Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook that the company made “mistakes” and outlined how it has changed its policies to make sure that user data is protected.

But here are 11 things you probably don’t know about Zuckerberg, whose Facebook receives over a billion users monthly:

1- Microsoft and AOL almost hired him. When Mark was a senior in high school he co-created Synapse Media Player, an MP3 player that tracked users’ favorite songs and made playlists based on their choices, like Spotify or Pandora today.

Microsoft and AOL wanted to buy it and hire Zuckerberg but Mark got a patent and went to college instead.

2- Mark uses Morgan Freeman artificially

Zuckerberg got actor Morgan Freeman to be the voice of his artificial intelligence assistance Jarvis, named after Tony Stark’s Jarvis AI from the Iron Man movies

On his application to Harvard University, he listed French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek as languages he could read and write.

10-Created Facemash before Facebook, and had to apologize back then

While studying at Harvard, Zuckerberg, then a psychology sophomore, developed “Facemash,” a website that asked users to judge students’ attractiveness based on their dorm-directory photos. Within only days of launch, the school shut it down indicating that it was a breach of individual privacy and security. In addition to the cancellation of the site, Zuckerberg had to issue a public apology for the website. Deja vue!

11-Color blind, but not for blue

Facebook is blue because Zuckerberg is red-green color blind. “Blue is the richest color for me. I can see all of blue,” he told ABC News.

12-Eat this!

According to an employee, when trying to resolve something at work with his team, Mark doesn’t let anyone order food. He would pound the table and just say, ‘No! We’re in lockdown! No one leaves the table until we’re done with this thing.”

13- Poor wedding

His wedding was small and intimate with less than 100 guests who snacked on Mexican and Japanese food from the couple’s favourite local restaurants; Palo Alto Sol and Fuki Sushi. The Mexican meals were valued at a modest $7.50 each. Dessert was a selection of mice-shaped chocolate from Burdick Chocolate priced at just over $3 each. It was a sweet the couple had eaten on their first date.

Hadi Khatib is a business editor with more than 15 years' experience delivering news and copy of relevance to a wide range of audiences. If newsworthy and actionable, you will find this editor interested in hearing about your sector developments and writing about it.

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